


Five More Minutes

by lesyeuxverts



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 03:43:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesyeuxverts/pseuds/lesyeuxverts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can’t stay on sufferance, live on scraps, count the smiles and cherish them, watch the kisses and resent them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five More Minutes

**Author's Note:**

> The Latin in the text is the Ave Maria or Hail Mary (English translation: http://www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/Basics/AveMaria.html).

There’s the give and take of it, and that’s all right - that has always worked. One-upmanship, the push and pull, the smart remarks and the studied quotes, it worked for the two of them. It worked for  _Lewis and Hathaway_ , James corrects himself, not for _them_. There is no  _them._  
  
Shock has taken his words, and the give and take doesn’t work any longer. James can’t think of anything clever to say, falls back on the usual. He’s happy for Robbie, he is.  
  
His fingernails dig into the palm of his hand, half-crescents that hurt. He prays to keep the pain at bay - that, after all, has always worked.  _Ave maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum._  
  
Five minutes - gone. Gone, like all mortal flesh.  
  
James drinks his pint, drinks it fast, imagines that Robbie had taken a sip first and that their lips have touched the same glass. He knows he shouldn’t, knows the alcohol will hit him hard after the sunshine, cloudless days of hard work, travel on an empty stomach.  
  
James can’t fly. He’s never been able to, doesn’t travel well, and he faces it alone when he must, eats the pretzels on the plane - if and only if he thinks they’ll settle his stomach. Gin and tonic does a better job.  
  
 _Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus._  
  
He goes to the bar, orders a gin and tonic and downs it in one go. He ignores Innocent’s disapproving look. He knows how she feels - he saw it on her face, saw her watching Lewis and Hobson kiss.  
  
It’s easier to stand at the bar, easier to stand and watch them from here - easier when he doesn’t have to pretend. The pretense is as ash in his mouth, drier than airplane-issued pretzels, harder to swallow than hope ever was.  
  
James forces himself to use their last names, to repeat them over and over again. Repetition dulls the pain - it always has.  _Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis_.  
  
Five minutes, and James lost only what he’s never had.  
  
He buys Innocent a gin and tonic, has another himself - makes his excuses, heads home. He has a bottle of something in the cupboard, he doesn’t know or care what.  
  
James could go back to Croatia. He could go to Nepal. To Kenya, to Timbuktu, to Antarctica. There must be a place in the world where James would be able to do good, where he could heal without harm to himself. Somewhere he’d forget imagining the taste of Robbie Lewis’s lips.  
  
He can’t fly away, but he can’t stay. He can’t stay on sufferance, live on scraps, count the smiles and cherish them, watch the kisses and resent them.  
  
 _Ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae._  Repetition dulls the pain.  
  
He’ll stay for one more smile. Five more minutes, and he’ll be gone.


End file.
